All of the data I’ll present below were from an experiment I did with the help of Dominic D’Agostino and Pat Jak (who did the indirect calorimetry) in the summer of 2013. (I wrote this up immediately, but I’ve only got around to blogging about it now.) Dom is, far and away, the most knowledgeable person on the topic of exogenous ketones. Others have been at it longer, but none have the vast experiences with all possible modalities (i.e., esters versus salts, BHB versus AcAc) and the concurrent understanding of how nutritional ketosis works. If people call me keto-man (some do, as silly as it sounds), they should call Dom keto-king.
It’s sometimes the case that a person has been attempting to transition to a state of ketosis, but in spite of their best efforts, they seem stuck in a kind of limbo where they’re eating hardly any carbs, but they don’t seem to be losing weight or experiencing the other benefits of the keto diet. But the science is the science, which means if you’re doing everything right you should be in ketosis. If you’re not, or you seem to be drifting in and out of a keto state, it’s not your body’s fault, it’s your diet.
Intellectual property covering uses of dietary ketone and ketone ester supplementation is owned by BTG Ltd., the University of Oxford, the National Institute of Health and TΔS Ltd. Should royalties ever accrue from these patents, KC and PC, as inventors, will receive a share of the royalties under the terms prescribed by the University of Oxford. KC is a director of TΔS Ltd., a company spun out of the University of Oxford to develop and commercialize products based on the science of ketone bodies in human nutrition. At the time of data collection and manuscript preparation, BS was an employee of TΔS Ltd., funded by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. SH is an employee of NTT DOCOMO, Inc. (Japan). The other authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Some general side effects of your body producing beta hydroxybutyrate is essentially the lull in time it takes to switch from carbohydrate metabolism to fat metabolism, which can take 3-4 days. This can lead to mood swings, fatigue, and general low energy. If you want to skip that step, we recommend taking exogenous BHBs to switch your body over effortlessly.

Ketogenic Diets and Physical Performance – Impaired physical performance is a common but not obligate result of a low carbohydrate diet. Lessons from traditional Inuit culture indicate that time for adaptation, optimized sodium and potassium nutriture, and constraint of protein to 15–25 % of daily energy expenditure allow unimpaired endurance performance despite nutritional ketosis.

There’s debate raging about which dietary tactic is the god particle for making you leaner, faster and healthier. How the ketogenic diet option squares off against the low carb route is vital for understanding the ways in which exogenous ketone supplements work. To get into ketosis the natural way, you need to keep your carb intake low enough for long enough for your body to begin using use fat as fuel. Your liver then converts a portion of that fat into energy molecules called ketones. These work together with glucose as a fuel source, but can actually kick in faster, allowing your body to operate more economically during lengthy, high-energy exercise efforts.

There is also evidence that individuals who adhere to a low-carbohydrate or ketogenic diet may require higher sodium intakes. Due to their low carbohydrate contents, these diets reduce insulin levels. Since one of insulin’s roles is to decrease the excretion of sodium in the urine[7], low-carbohydrate and ketogenic dieters excrete more sodium than normal, and are encouraged to salt their meals to increase their sodium intake.

Task switching is the process of adapting to changing circumstances (switching from one goal to another). Two cards are shown one above the other, and a combination of letter and a number (i.e., “A4”) will appear on one of the two cards. If it appears on top, the task is to indicate whether the number is an even number, and if on the bottom the task is to indicate whether the letter is a vowel.
If you are not on a vigorous exercise plan, I wouldn't go more than about a scoop a day (if you are a 30min/day, low carb person like me) because some of the research available says that if you get into ketosis using diet only and supplement with extra ketones, you may experience a slower rate of weight loss since you are getting your ketones from a supplement rather than the body transforming fat to ketones. As I progress, I will probably move up to 2 scoops per day.
Relationship between blood ketone and glucose levels: a BMS + MCT (5 g/kg) supplemented rats demonstrated a significant inverse relationship between elevated blood ketone levels and decreased blood ketone levels (r2 = 0.4314, p = 0.0203). b At week 4, BMS + MCT (10 g/kg) and MCT (10 g/kg) showed a significant correlation between blood ketone levels and blood glucose levels (r2 = 0.8619, p
Although decreases in FFA, TG and glucose occurred, there were no significant differences between the KE and KS drinks or with intake amount. Ingestion of ketone drinks significantly decreased overall mean plasma FFA from 0.7 to 0.4 mM, TG from 1.1 to 0.9 mM and glucose from 5.7 to 4.8 mM after 1 h (all p < 0.05). Concentrations were the same as at baseline by 4 h, with FFA at 0.6 mM, TG at 0.9 mM and glucose 5.1 mM (Figures 2A–C). There was a rise in insulin concentrations 30 min following all drinks, probably due to the small amount of carbohydrate in the sweetener (Figure ​(Figure2D2D).
I don’t recommend that you go straight for a 1-2 day fast, but begin by restricting yourself to certain eating windows. Typically people restrict themselves to the hours of 5pm – 11pm. People often refer to their fasting windows by numbers: 19/5 or 21/3, for example, means 19 hours of fasting and 5 hours eating or 21 hours fasting and 3 hours eating, respectively.
Sometimes waiting for your body to make the switch from carbohydrate metabolism to beta hydroxybutyrate metabolism (aka ketosis) can be an uncomfortable and lengthy process. Another way to get beta hydroxybutyrate into your system so your body is using “clean” energy is by taking it supplementally or through nutrition. A betahydroxybutyrate supplement is what can be used in this scenario. This is an exogenous ketone. Exogenous means you get it from outside of your body. Think EX = exit = outside.

As repeated KE consumption would be required to maintain nutritional ketosis, we investigated the kinetics of drinks in series and of continuous intra-gastric infusion. During starvation, the accumulation of ketones (>4 mM) reportedly inhibited ketone clearance from the blood, however the underlying mechanism is unknown (Hall et al., 1984; Wastney et al., 1984; Balasse and Fery, 1989). In Study 3, βHB uptake and elimination were identical for the second and third KE drinks, suggesting that βHB may have reached a pseudo-steady state should further identical boluses have been given at similar intervals. Furthermore, when the KE was given at a constant rate via a NG tube, blood ketone concentrations remained ~3 mM. Therefore, repeated KE drinks effectively maintain ketosis at the intervals and doses studied here.

Getting enough sleep not only helps in the production of growth hormones vital for muscle growth, but it plays a particular role as already discussed. If you’re intermittently fasting then sleep is crucial is helping you sustain the fast. 6-10 hours of your day will be dedicated to sleep, helping you to reboot and not think about food during this time. That means less time for you to actually be fasting! Stress is another factor – if we don’t get enough sleep, we’ll tend to feel more stress and agitation throughout the day. Ensuring that we’re well rested plays a huge part in keeping down cortisol levels so that are insulin and blood sugar levels don’t spike.
Although several studies have linked calcium supplementation with an increased risk of heart attack and heart disease[18], other studies have not found the same association. For example, a study on calcium supplementation (1000 mg/day) in postmenopausal women indicated a reduced risk of hip fracture, but no increase in cardiovascular disease or mortality in the supplement group, compared to the placebo group[19]. Another study found no effect from calcium supplementation (600 or 1200 mg/day) on abdominal aortic calcification[20].

Many of us have heard the saying, “Don’t blame the butter for what the bread did.” Similarly, don’t blame the sodium for what the fries did. Sodium has been shown to help maintain fluid balance, normal muscle and nerve function, and blood pressure and volume[1]. The movement of sodium ions and other electrolytes across cell membranes helps to facilitate muscle contraction and nerve impulses. Electrolytes also help to maintain fluid balance across intracellular and extracellular spaces and blood volume.

Thank you, Mark! I am an ME/CFS patient, and I have improved quite a bit on a ketogenic diet, which I have been following for the past 3 months. I am slowly losing weight (much needed) and I wondered, does using exogenous ketones inhibit fat loss? I’m trying to balance the benefits of continuing weight loss with benefits in dealing with ME/CFS symptoms. Thank you for any info you can offer!
I am a little confused. I can see how EK’s can help up the state of ketosis, but as far is weight loss is concerned, aren’t the ketones you produce naturally created by the breaking down of your own fat? If I supplement with exogenous ketones, will that slow the natural creation of ketones? Especially if I am eating a higher amount of carbs. Would exogenous ketones speed fat loss, or slow it?
Why is this desirable? Think about energy production in your body much like macro energy consumption on a planetary level. Coal is gross and dirty and messes tons of different things up. You need to continue to burn it to get energy. Solar power is free, clean and pretty much limitless. This is pretty much the same story when you are burning carbs (coal) versus fats (solar) for energy.
International Patent # PCT/US2014/031237, University of South Florida, D.P. D’Agostino, S. Kesl, P. Arnold, “Compositions and Methods for Producing Elevated and Sustained Ketosis”. P. Arnold (Savind) has received financial support (ONR N000140610105 and N000140910244) from D.P. D’Agostino (USF) to synthesize ketone esters. The remaining authors have no conflicts of interest.
[1] Shannon L. Kesl, corresponding author Angela M. Poff, Nathan P. Ward, Tina N. Fiorelli, Csilla Ari, Ashley J. Van Putten, Jacob W. Sherwood, Patrick Arnold, and Dominic P. D’Agostino (2016). Effects of exogenous ketone supplementation on blood ketone, glucose, triglyceride, and lipoprotein levels in Sprague–Dawley rats. Nutrition & Metabolism, 13(9)
It was explained to me that exogenous ketones inhibit lipolysis (breaking down of fat cells), therefore triglycerides should be expected to go down. They theorize that ketones may promote transfer of triglycerides from blood into cells, which primes the pump for fat burning, but to verify would require conducting biopsies to measure blood versus tissue.

Will taking exogenous slow down my fat loss? Since now before digging into my body for energy/ketones, I will first use up the exogenous ketones I ingest. Also do exogenous ketones somehow help get even more keto adapted, keeping in mind I have been on a strict keto diet without a problem and don’t mind it at all. Outside of performance improvements, do you think exogenous ketones is for someone like me who is primarily looking for fat loss.

When you are in a state of ketosis, the body turns fatty acids into ketones - these appear as beta-hydroxybutyrate in the blood. Measuring blood ketones is regarded as the gold standard and most accurate way to track ketone levels. Testing this way can be expensive, its can cost up to $3 a strip, so if you're testing multiple times a day it can get pricey.

Blood, urine, plasma, and breath ketone concentrations following mole-matched ketone ester or isocaloric dextrose drinks in fed and fasted subjects (n = 16) at rest. Data from both of the two study visits in each condition (fed and fasted) completed by an individual are included in the analysis. Values are means ± SEM. (A) Blood d-βHB. (B) AUC of blood d-βHB. (C) Urine d-βHB excretion. (D) Plasma acetoacetate (AcAc). (E) Measured breath acetone (ppm = parts per million). (F,G) Mean d-βHB Cmax and difference between βHB Cmax over two visits when subjects separately consumed two ketone ester drinks in both the fed (F) and fasted (G) state. X axis = mean d-βHB Cmax of the 2 visits (mM), Y axis = difference between d-βHB Cmax in each visit. 95% confidence limits are shown as dotted lines. Significance denoted by: *p < 0.05 fed vs. fasted.
A typical serving of racemic ketone salts contains around 12g of beta hydroxybutyrate, of which only half is the D- form (6g). Compared to the 40g ketone esters I consumed (which are 100% D- form), I would need to consume somewhere around seven to nine packets of ketone salts to get the same amount of D-β-hydroxybutyrate (some D- form is wasted burning of the L- form), along with the huge amount of salts contained and more than a gallon of water (since the powders must be mixed). Even if one could consume that amount of ketone salts, they will probably suffer from what people often refer as “disaster pants” (aka diarrhea) due to the amount of salt consumed.
Hi, I still a little confused about when or how to take this. I am trying to get adapted and minimize the flu. Is it most beneficial before eating, after eating, with food or in place of food? I have been keto in the past but this time I am not switching over to fat burning mode even though my macros are good. ( I am thinking it is just too many calories and carbs at this point but I get hungry!) Help please.
Relationship between blood ketone and glucose levels: a BMS + MCT (5 g/kg) supplemented rats demonstrated a significant inverse relationship between elevated blood ketone levels and decreased blood ketone levels (r2 = 0.4314, p = 0.0203). b At week 4, BMS + MCT (10 g/kg) and MCT (10 g/kg) showed a significant correlation between blood ketone levels and blood glucose levels (r2 = 0.8619, p
To answer that question, we're going to break down the methods that can get you the results you want in the least possible time. We're going to let you in on a couple of tips and tricks that you will need to know before trying out the diet yourself. We guarantee you that these tips will help you achieve success in your chosen diet quickly and easily.

Exercising is undoubtedly important when it comes to losing weight. An added bonus of being in a state of ketosis is the ability to improve your exercise performance, but you should also remember that entering ketosis for the first time can be a bit of a challenge for a lot of people. The body is still adjusting to such a dramatic diet change, so exercising may prove to be difficult at first. The key here is to keep going.

The human studies aren’t quite there yet, but it seems likely that they’d help. A recent human case study found that ketone esters added to the regular diet improved Alzheimer’s symptoms. Animal studies indicate that adding exogenous ketones to a regular lab (read: not ketogenic) diet can reduce seizure activity and improve overall symptoms in epilepsy animal models, reverse early neuronal hyperactivity in Alzheimer’s animal models, and reduce anxiety in rats.
Exogenous ketones are not a magical fat-loss supplement, and to suggest otherwise is both factually incorrect and deliberately misleading. In fact, consuming ketones to excess can hinder rather than help fat loss! Aggressive marketing of exogenous BHB’s has helped to create a myth being believed now by millions – that simply drinking ketones each day will somehow magically melt away the pounds. The metabolic fact that unscrupulous marketers do not point out is that dietary fat (plate fat; or fat/ketones you ingest) will be burned before stored fat (body fat). So, whilst exogenous ketones can help you to mitigate hunger (and therefore help you achieve a caloric deficit) – and although they also have many other benefits (detailed below); they are not a magic wand that you can wave to achieve weight or fat loss and should not be marketed as such.
Medium-chain-triglycerides are fats that are easily absorbed by the body and provide a number of really powerful health benefits. Fast energy, appetite control for better weight loss, increased ketone levels—you name it. They are also one of the most convenient and flexible, too. Add it to a shake, make a smoothie, or take a spoonful of it straight with some water for a quick, healthy keto boost that lasts all day. If you’re the kind of person that struggles to stick to a diet or eat a lot throughout the day, MCT oils are the perfect keto supplement.
Too much cortisol tells the liver that you are in physical danger and need a lot of energy fast. The brain doesn’t understand the difference between physical danger and emotional stress. When emotionally stressed, the brain thinks you’re in a life-and-death situation, so the liver comes to your rescue and gives you the glucose you need to fight off your attacker.
Hello, I’ve tried several different Exogenous Ketone supplements and I believe Perfect Keto may be the best I’ve tried. Thus far I’ve had Keto//OS from Pruvitt, Kegenix, KetoForce, KetoCaNa and Ketond. Out of all these brands both Perfect Keto and Ketond have been the products that hack me into Ketosis quick and for longer periods of time. Perfect Keto is less expensive that Ketones from Pruvitt mainly because Pruvitt and their Network Marketing is all about making money. The flavors of Perfect Keto are much better than Pruvitt.
As for MCT oil (and oil powders), powder formulations tend to cause less digestive distress (e.g. probiotics), but some folks object to the additional ingredients like sunflower lecithin or soluble corn fiber). Even if you’d like to eventually settle on an oil, I’d recommend starting with a powder to see how you respond and to give your body the chance to adapt over time.
As KE drinks achieved a significantly higher d-βHB concentrations than KS, we investigated factors that may be important in the use of ketone drinks to achieve nutritional ketosis. Initially we determined the repeatability of blood ketosis following KE drinks and found little variation in kinetic parameters between individuals. Variability between participants was less than within the population, and accurate individual prediction of the d-βHB Cmax following a body-weight adjusted KE drink was achieved. Variability within individuals was likely due to normal daily changes in GI function, including gastric emptying, portal blood flow or intestinal transit time, which may alter KE hydrolysis and absorption.
Over four visits, participants (n = 15) consumed 1.6 and 3.2 mmol.kg−1 of βHB as KE (141 mg/kg and 282 mg/kg of R-3-hydroxybutyl-R-1,3-hydroxybutyrate) or as KS (KetoForce, KetoSports, USA) sodium and potassium βHB, containing 1.6–3.2 g of each cation), plus 6 g of sweetener containing 19 kCal (4 g of carbohydrate) (Symrise, Holzminden, Germany), diluted to 300 ml using water. Drink blinding was not possible due to unmaskable differences in taste (bitter vs. salty).
As Dr. Ryan Lowery pointed out to me, ketone supplements could play an important role in the future for elite sports performance, for example, or for people with brain injuries who cannot metabolize glucose properly. I am encouraged that scientists are working to develop these possibilities and, as long as plenty of peer-reviewed scientific research is done into the products being developed, I could feel more positive about the ketone salts in the future. For now, that scientific support is lacking.

I interviewed Dr. Brianna Stubbs, a ketone researcher with a Ph.D. in Metabolic Physiology from the University of Oxford who is now Research Lead at HVMN, specializing in developing ketone esters. She told me that in terms of science on the ketone salts and their effect on physical performance, one of the most-cited benefits of ketone salts, the scientific studies that have been done show at best no effect on physical performance and that, currently, there is no peer-reviewed scientific research on the ketone salt products on the market.

Since beta hydroxybutyrate is transported throughout the body via the blood, the best way to check your true BHB levels is through a blood test. The good news is that you can just use a simple finger prick and an at home method that is very similar to how diabetics check their glucose. The bad news is that it can be pretty expensive. Each strip and time you test can be around $4-6.

Ketosis is a natural process that more and more people are flocking to these days in an effort to stay fit and healthy. Studies show that it has a host of health benefits and plays a key role in maintaining or changing your physical appearance by helping you lose weight. This is due to the fact that when the body is in a state of ketosis, it converts fat into compounds known as ketones, effectively turning fat into a source of energy.

Exogenous ketones have become a popular nutritional supplement since their introduction in 2014. Unfortunately there is a lot of inaccurate information and marketing you have to read through to find the truth about them. This article does the hard work for you. It gets right to the true benefits and drawbacks of exogenous ketones supported by research studies.
Thank you, Mark! I am an ME/CFS patient, and I have improved quite a bit on a ketogenic diet, which I have been following for the past 3 months. I am slowly losing weight (much needed) and I wondered, does using exogenous ketones inhibit fat loss? I’m trying to balance the benefits of continuing weight loss with benefits in dealing with ME/CFS symptoms. Thank you for any info you can offer!
So if your high-fat diet includes a high amount of roasted seeds or roasted nuts, nut butters, heated oils such as heated coconut oil or heated extra virgin olive oil, barbecued meats or meats cooked at very high temperatures, then your triglyceride count is going to go up. You should have triglycerides that are less than 150mg/dL, and a triglyceride to HDL ratio that is no more than 4:1, and in most of the healthiest people I’ve worked with, triglycerides are under 100 and the triglyceride to HDL ratio is less than 2:1. If your ratio is whacked, your ketogenic diet isn’t doing you any favors.’
As I mentioned before, this was by no means a scientific experiment carried out under lab conditions, and this means we can only draw tentative conclusions from any of the data. Nonetheless, carrying out the testing in the way described above should give most people a good idea of how well the ketone supplements show the noticeable benefits they are marketed to have and provide a clear enough basis for a decision on whether or not to buy them.

There are things you can do to get into ketosis faster. We explain how to get into ketosis and ways to make transitioning into ketosis easier. But first, we go over some facts about ketosis you need to understand before you start your keto journey. We will also explain the science behind ketosis, including how long it realistically takes for your body to make the switch.

BHB easily crosses the blood-brain barrier resulting in easily accessible energy to the brain and muscle tissues, becoming a source of energy after entering the mitochondria, being converted to Acetyl-CoA, and then ATP through the Krebs cycle (the same process that glucose goes through to become ATP). This ultimately results in many direct benefits, including:

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Medical Disclaimer: The material on this site is provided for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Always consult your physician before beginning any diet or exercise program.